Russia’s Mayak CubeSat might Outshine Venus and Jupiter in the Night Sky

A team of young researchers and scientists in Russia have launched a tiny CubeSat, dubbed Mayak, which might outshine Venus and Jupiter in the night sky, as per claims made by developers of this satellite.

Mayak was launched on July 14 through Russian made Soyuz rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Soyuz carried with it 71 other satellites as well in the orbit. Mayak is currently orbiting the Earth at an altitude of about 600 km.

“At 12:10 PM MAYAK was orbited successfully. Now the team is expecting the NORAD ID for the satellite. Right after it we will be able to launch the application for iOS and Android for MAYAK tracking,” the project team stated on its website.

Mayak in Russian means “beacon”. This CubeSat probe is about the size of a bread-loaf, and was designed and developed by a team of Russian engineers and students from the Moscow State Mechanical Engineering University (MAMI). Moscow Polytechnic University raised over $34,000 from crowdfunding campaign launched on Russian website Boomstarter for the launching of the satellite.

In coming days, the satellite will unfurl its solar reflectors having a surface area of 170 square feet and made of reflective Mylar material. After unfurling, these reflectors will create a pyramid shape to allow beaming a good amount of Sun’s light towards Earth. According to its designers, the Mayak will then have a brightness of magnitude -10, and would appear as a very, very bright object in the night sky, much brighter than the International Space Station (ISS) and even the Venus or Jupiter. In the night sky, it would be second only to Moon in terms of brightness. Some scientists however dispute the claim and think the satellite will be a brightness of magnitude closer to -3.6.

Researchers have also created a mobile app to track the movement of Mayak in space. However, the access to this app will be limited to only those people who backed the crowdfunding project. Mayak’s movements will enable researchers measure the density of the atmosphere and its effects on the Mylar envelope. The team also hopes that the data collected will help in designing larger devices that will be attached to large pieces of space junk and eventually bring them down into the atmosphere to burn up. The team is also hopeful that this project will inspire students and general public and raise their interest in the field of space technology.

Satellite tracking websites are now trying to follow Mayak to offer information about Mayak’s passes over different parts of the world. Some astronomers have also expressed their concern about this new super-bright object in the sky as it might interfere with their observations. Astronomers will now need to make new adjustments in their data while performing large-scale surveys.